Using "Count" for variables

For some reason I can't get the "count" function to work in php. All I want to do is count the number of characters that have been stored as a variable and then print the result. Any one have a simple solutions to a simple question?

Here is my code:

if(isset($dat["Hype"]))
		{
                        $descri = $dat["Hype"];
                        print $descri;
			print count($descri);
		}

Code (markup):

 

strlen not count! count is analogous to sizeof (returns number of entries in an array)

 

count() is a mysql function.

 

Perfect! That works, obviously. Here comes the second question. I didn't think this through correctly and I want to use that fuction so that I can limit the characters being displayed. I have descriptions on a few products that I want to limit to a specific unified size. I can use the strlen to count the variable now how do I limit what that variable prints due to the results on the count? Thanks, this is helping a ton!

 

You will want to use substr.

Not sure how long you want to limit your string to.

$newString = substr("$oldString", 0, 200);

PHP:

Here's the substr manual.
http://php.net/substr

 

Thanks! That did it!

 

Here is a function I use that is kinder to the description. It will only cut off at the end of a word or a sentence and it will add ellipses to the end. It only takes two variables, the string and the cut off point.

$newstring = shorten ($oldstring, length);

function shorten($string,$length)
{
	if (strlen($string)>$length)
	{	
		$cutnum = $length-2;
		$sample = substr($string,$cutnum,1);

		while ( ($sample!=' ' AND $sample!='.') AND ($cutnum < $length+10) )
		{
			$cutnum = $cutnum + 1;
			$sample = substr($string,$cutnum,1);
		}
		$string = substr($string,0,($cutnum))."...";
	}
	return $string;
}

Code (markup):